Socioeconomic Status and the Psychological Foundations of Social Mobility

The symposium examines how individuals’ socioeconomic status (SES) shapes micro-level processes relevant to productivity, talent utilization, and ultimately socioeconomic mobility and stratification. We include four papers that investigate novel ways in which people’s SES influences their psychological processes relevant to social identification, career-related attributions, engagement in extra- role behavior, and cross-class social interactions in a mixed-SES environment characterizing modern organizations. Jointly, the papers uncover novel micro- pathways through which lower-SES in itself introduces barriers to workers’ professional experience and advancement potential, pointing to novel organizational and managerial areas for intervention. Following the presentations, Carrie Leana, a prominent organizational behavior scholar on the topics of SES, financial insecurity, and the working poor, will facilitate a group discussion regarding these papers and future research on the topic. Class Work: Interweavi...